Cooking it up in the Labs
by Uncle Charlie
Summary: A new Working Stiffs story. Ever wonder about the person who has to finish all of Illya's little lab projects? Meet the guy who tries.


When I was two, I fell down a flight of stairs. It doesn't matter whose fault it was, the fall left me paralyzed from the waist down. It was the last flight of stairs I would ever have to deal with. My opportunities were pretty limited.

I spent a lot of time in bed in between operations, each one as big a failure as the one before. I learned to read to alleviate the boredom. Hell, it wasn't like I had much of anything else to do. My equals shunned me and girls either giggled or looked at me with great sad puppy dog eyes. They didn't get rude until college.

I got good grades in school and even better grades in college. One career day, I was approached by a recruiter from UNCLE. He assured me that UNCLE didn't see my wheelchair; all they saw was the potential. He didn't have to say much more than that.

UNCLE is a great place to work. My work hours are pretty up to me – night, day, somewhere in between. My supervisor, he's a good guy and doesn't care much as long as my work gets done. Part of the lab was modified for me and I could move as easily there as I could my own home. No one bothered me and I was a happy camper.

After a while, things settled into a routine and I got to know my co-workers. A few were put off at first by my wheelchair, but not for long. We didn't care about much except science. It is a bond that unites us and binds us together as a brotherhood. Let the rest of the world sneer, we are the movers and shakers.

The hardest ones to get to know are the part-timers. They sort of float in, make a mess of things, and then leave. Sometimes they are doing stuff worthwhile, but a lot of time we just get a garbage pail and push everything into it. One of us was usually assigned to watch them and try to figure out how to finish what they started. Yet, there are always exceptions to the rule.

I give you the example of Illya Kuryakin.

The guy's a halfway decent scientist when he has time. You can't be Section Two and work in the labs at the same time, but God knows, he tries.

I've learned to appreciate his style of lab work. He's more engineer than chemist which makes sense, considering his education. He'd great at fiddling with things, improving them or expanding their capacity. If he was in the real world, he would hold a dozen patents, but at UNCLE, everything we do belongs to them.

The problem with my friend, Illya, is that he's a starter, but rarely does he get to finish things. He's a Section Two through and through. When they call, he goes, even if that means scraping hours or days of work.

Once he was working on boosting the homing link on a communicator. Of course that meant designing a smaller battery but one with a longer life. I'd been watching him… there are times when science moves very fast. This was not one of them. I was attempting to cultivate a new strain of penicillin and things were moving very slowly.

Illya's communicator chirped and I could see the frustration in his eyes. He had to answer it, but it was obvious that he didn't want to.

"Kuryakin here."

"Illya, we're on the move. There's been an uprising in Bhutan."

"Again?" He sighed long and low. "I'm on my way." He put the communicator away and looked at the lab bench. "All I needed was two hours more."

"Did you make good notes up to now?" I asked without even realizing it. He gave me a weird look. "Oh, I'm Rudy Corell." I offered him my hand.

"I have." He shook it firmly, his expression still wary. "Why haven't I seen you before?" Then he saw my wheelchair.

"Never looked down, I'm guessing. I've been here for five years." I nodded to his experiment. "I could try and finish that up for you."

His eyes narrowed and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. We are all very protective of our ideas and experiments. To turn one over to someone else meant taking a huge leap of faith. Yet this had the potential to save a hundred lives.

"All right." He pushed a stained lab book to me. "Make sure that the battery doesn't compromise the transistor components."

"Gotcha. " He started to leave. "Good luck in Bhutan, Mr. Kuryakin," I called after him.

"Good luck here, Mr. Corell."

"Rudy."

"Rudy."

Then he was gone, walking quickly from the lab, exchange a white lab jacket for his suit jacket on the way out. That's when I saw the shoulder holster and realized that I might never see him alive again. Such is the life of a Section Two. At that moment, I decided to do the very best I could to make this project happen for him. It was the least I could do.

A couple weeks passed, I finished up his project, not exactly as he would have done it, but it was good enough for communications to start field testing. I felt good about that.

I was charting some numbers and not very happy about it when someone walked up to me. They were not doing what I wanted them to.

"Do you have a moment?"

"I recognize that voice." I cheerfully abandoned my paperwork and grinned up at Illya. "How was…" That's when I saw the bruising around his mouth and eyes. His bottom lip was split and mine hurt just looking at it. He sat down beside me so that we were nose-to-nose.

"We did what we set out to do." His voice sounded a little thick. "I am here to thank you."

"What for?"

"You finished my project and then I hear you made sure it was my name on it, not yours."

"Well, you did most of the work. I just followed your lead."

"I wish we'd had it on this last assignment. It would have made things… easier."

"You're okay?"

He nodded slowly. "I will be, as will Napoleon."

It took me a minute to realize he meant his partner, the heart throb of Section Two, and not the emperor. "You know, you could apply the same principle to a host of other items. All we need to do is miniaturize the battery a bit more."

"We?" He smiled slightly. I think he'd have smiled more if it wasn't for the lip.

"Yeah, we. When it comes down to it, we're all UNCLE."

He offered me his hand and I winced at the scrapes, bruises, and cuts that decorated it. "I would prefer friends."

That's how we came to be lab partners. It's been a great friendship and while I'd rather he toss Section Two on its ear and come to work in the labs full time, I know that will never be. So instead, I do my best to make things to keep him safe, value his friendship and talent when he's here, and worry about him when he's not.

He makes sure that what experiments we do, both of our names appear on them. He designed a new wheelchair for me, one that is much easier to get around with. He gives me full credit and never ever treats me as anything other than an equal. He worries about me being alone so much and presented me with a kitten on my last birthday – a Russian Blue I, of course, named Illya. He's my constant companion now and I don't know what I'd do without either of them.

You see, I believe, that into each life we are given a chance to fly. I'm so glad my chance is called Illya.


End file.
